File:Beckert's '48 garden annual (1948) (20359140245).jpg

Title: Beckert's '48 garden annual
Identifier: beckerts48garden1948beck (find matches)
Year: 1948 (1940s)
Authors: Beckert's Seed Store; Henry G. Gilbert Nursery and Seed Trade Catalog Collection
Subjects: Nurseries (Horticulture) Pennsylvania Pittsburgh Catalogs; Nursery stock Pennsylvania Pittsburgh Catalogs; Flowers Seeds Pennsylvania Pittsburgh Catalogs; Bulbs (Plants) Pennsylvania Pittsburgh Catalogs; Grasses Seeds Pennsylvania Pittsburgh Catalogs
Publisher: Pittsburgh, Pa. : Beckert's Seed Store, Inc.
Contributing Library: U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Library
Digitizing Sponsor: U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Library

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TOMATO, Jubilee CANTALOUPE, Hale's Best EGG PLANT, Black Beauty HOW? WHEN? WHERE? WHY? _ . ..'..'../.. . /. Extra Feeding DON'T DEPEND on organic matter only for feeding your vegetables. While it has some fertility value, it won't provide enough. Remember that vegetables growing in a garden are in an artificial environment. You don't want natural growth; you want crops to mature as soon as possible, and this means extra feeding with suitable fertilizers. Properly used, chemical fertilizers furnish plant food at lowest cost in most readily avail- able form. DO make provisions for extra feed- ings through the summer as plants grow and take fertility from the soil. When to Use Lime DON'T apply lime unless it is really needed! It is good, of course, for the purpose of breaking up heavy clay soil. A good check on the need for lime is the way your beets grow. Usu- ally a garden soil that will grow good beets contains enough lime. If beets do poorly, or if sheep sorrel grows vigorously, apply about 50 lbs. of hydrated lime or 100 lbs. of ground limestone to every 1,000 sq. ft. of garden. If you have a pH tester, most flowers and vegetables grow well in a soil that tests between 6.0 and 7.0. Before You Dig Before digging or plowing the garden, apply 2V2 to 3 lbs. of balanced fer- tilizer over every 100 sq. ft. of garden. Divide fertilizer into two lots, sowing one with the wind and the other across the wind. Or, better yet, use a fertilizer spreader. Next, make a mud pie test. Pick up a handful of soil and pat it lightly into a mud pie or cake. If this can be crumbled into loose soil easily, the soil is all right to dig. If it hangs together, it is too wet: don't dig. Spading the Garden The average home garden can be dug easily in five or six days, if done in stages. Usually, a hand-dug garden is in better condition than one that has been plowed. Start by digging a trench the depth and width of a spade. Wheel the dirt from this trench around to the other side of the garden, where you plan to finish digging. Throw the dirt from succeeding rows into the trench made by the previous spade cut. The last cut is then filled with the earth wheeled from the first. Spading vs. Plowing DON'T allow bad plowing to spoil your soil. Many a garden plot has been ruined by a heavy tractor that worked it too wet. Be sure your soil passes the mud pie test before you allow a plowman to touch it. Too often, regular farm equipment is too heavy for working garden soils. DON'T work your soil too much. Re- member that after you finish digging or plowing, your soil has been fluffed up and loosened, so plant roots can grow through it easily. Every time you go over it you are packing it down, making it less suitable for Practical answers to every-day questions about home gardening > growing plants. Most inexperienced gardeners overdo surface preparation i by trying to work the surface into a fine dust. Clods should be broken up, : stones rakea off and trash removed, within sensible limits. If the soil was dug at the right mud pie point, most lumps should break up without too much additional cultivation. DO use a cord or garden line stretched across the garden in laying out rows. Crooked rows increase the work needed. Also, they waste space. Open furrows for sowing seed by running the end of a hoe handle along a taut cord. For most seeds this should not be more than y2" deep; 1" deep for peas, beans, corn, etc. Fine seeds should not be covered more than l/*n in the furrow. If your soil cakes or crusts badly, use clean sand, or a mixture of 50/50 sand and leaf mold, or peat moss, to cover the seed. This loose mixture does not cake and al- lows the tender seedlings to break through readily. Where it is important to catch light rainfall, corn, peas, beans, etc. can be sown at the bottom of a 3" to 4" fur- row, but should not be covered with more than 1" of soil. 1 A hill is a hole! Many gardeners think a "hill" for planting squash, cucum- bers and melons is actually a pile of earth. But a hill means a shallow de- pression filled with rich earth, not a mound. This depression catches extra moisture that the vine crops need for rapid growth. Vine crops will grow better if you can dig in lots of well- rotted manure or compost underneath. 11

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